The Secrets That We Keep
by catfoxy
Summary: Benji is doing research for a case. But then he accidentally stumbles over something completely unrelated. A horrifying secret that Ethan never wanted his team or anyone else to find out. Ever.


_Author's Note:_

_I was thinking a little more about Ethan's personal background. And I realized it's entirely possible that Ethan Hunt has one very dark secret. One that is his burden to bear, no one else's, which is why he cleared it off his personnel file, and, as far as he knows, also out of all other files within the IMF, the FBI, the CIA and any other agency that could have known about it at some point._

_Nobody would ever again be able to make the connection. _

_Or so he thought._

_(Warning: The solution to Ethan's secret only comes at the very end of the story, but I promise if you make it that far, there will be a reward at the end that makes everything come together in one crystal clear moment. And it really helps if you saw the movie 'Collateral' at least once in your life. __:o)_

_Summary:_

_Benji is doing research for a case. But then he accidentally stumbles over something completely unrelated. A horrifying secret that Ethan never wanted his team or anyone else to find out. Ever._

**The Secrets That We Keep**

Benji was busy.

In about an hour, the team would come over to his house to start that barbeque party they had been planning all month.

Benji had been looking forward to this all week.

So much so, he only now realized that in all his anticipation he had completely forgotten to take care of one other little job the IMF had asked him to handle. It was about the relocation of some government witness, a joined operation with the FBI, and Benji had been put in charge of giving the new home for that witness a quick background check.

Which meant, under normal circumstances, he would have simply requested the necessary top-secret files from the FBI, then waited a day for them to be delivered to him, cross-checked the FBI information with their IMF files, and Bob was your uncle. It was nothing big, routine really.

However, with the barbeque less than an hour away, and his potato salad not even in the first stages of being 'ready', Benji knew that in order to get that work done now, he would have to do it the old-fashioned way.

He decided to hack his way directly into the FBI computer.

After less than ten minutes, he was in.

Calling up the necessary FBI files with his left hand tapping away on the keyboard – while with his right hand he grabbed the potatoes out of the fridge – he quickly began his safety check-up.

He made good progress, getting through his list of checks with an efficiency born from routine. Fifteen minutes later, Benji was at the last point on his check-up list. It concerned the question whether any known 'threats' had ever been seen, quartered or killed in the area where their witness was to set up house next week. For that purpose, Benji cross-referenced his IMF data base with any old FBI cases.

Unexpectedly he got one hit.

Okay.

Let's see…

It was an old FBI case. One block from the witeness's new home, there had once been a shootout involving a man who had been hard-sought by the FBI.

As Benji looked further into the FBI case file, however, he soon saw that this would not be a problem for the relocation of their witness. The guy the FBI had been after was killed ten years ago.

'Good, so it's nothing that has any further relevance to my current case,' Benji realized with a sigh of relief.

It also meant he was done. The safety-check had turned out okay and Benji could now, with a clear conscience, recommend to the FBI that their choice of a new home for their witness was safe and sound. It was Benji-approved, so to speak.

Checking his watch – he still had half an hour for that potato salad – Benji was about to log out of the FBI case file, when something caught his eye.

At the very end of the file, the name of the shooter was listed once more, and this time, there was small flag next to the name. The flag was blue.

_That_ was unusual.

A flag usually meant a cross-reference to another personnel file. That was standard for both IMF and FBI. The blue, however, was specifically an IMF thing. In IMF circles, it meant that the file it referred to was top-secret itself.

Benji had never seen a blue flag in an FBI file before.

And he certainly had never expected to ever see one in a file about something as simple as a shootout.

It made him curious.

So curious in fact, that he decided 28 minutes would have to be enough to put the finishing touches on his potato salad – which gave him one and a half minutes to check out what was behind that blue flag.

Cracking his thumbs and wiggling his fingers, he instantly set to work.

Thirty seconds later, Benji wasn't _past _the blue flag yet, but he knew a little more about it:

This particular blue flag actually referred to _two_ personnel files of one and the same person. He couldn't see yet who that person was, but from what the file properties told him, one of those files appeared to be still active. The other file seemed to be an older version of the first.

To Benji, who knew a thing or two about computer systems, it almost looked like someone had tried to delete that older file at some point, but instead of erasing it from the system completely, the file had merely fallen through the cracks and had obviously remained as an outdated backup in the system.

'Interesting.'

So much so, that it made Benji deduct another two minutes from his potato salad time.

While Benji couldn't get into the first file, due to it having an active security code even he couldn't hack, he quickly found a loophole to restore the second, older file. When he eventually right-clicked the blue flag again, this time a new window opened, showing him what was in that outdated file.

It was a personnel file alright.

And the name at the top of the file was:

Ethan H.

At first, Benji thought he had mixed something up. Perhaps he had unknowingly hit a wrong key somewhere, accidentally opening their own IMF data base again in the background and somehow he might have clicked on Ethan's…

No.

He knew he hadn't.

He was still within the FBI data base.

This was an FBI case file.

A file with a blue flag that opened, for some reason, to an outdated version of a personnel file for some man called Ethan H.

Benji tried to think of how many people there might be with the first name Ethan and an H for the first letter of their last name.

He couldn't think of many.

In fact, he couldn't think of even one. Except _their_ Ethan.

And as Benji began reading the first few lines of the file, he realized that the document was indeed talking about the Ethan Hunt he knew.

'What the h-…?'

Dumbfounded, he continued reading.

He knew it was probably something he shouldn't be doing, but his eyes wouldn't stop moving along the lines on the page, the words simply jumping from the screen right into his brain of their own accord.

Benji couldn't stop himself.

His eyes kept moving, taking it all in. Until he came to a line that he didn't understand at first. So he read it again. And this time he really _read_ it.

It was then that he realized why Ethan's name was referenced to a file about some killer that's been dead for the past ten years.

'Oh... My. God.'

For a moment, Benji could do nothing but look at the screen.

Then he felt his fingers start to tremble. Tremble with fear.

And suddenly Benji realized that he might have just made one very big mistake.

That file had been well-hidden for a reason. A reason which Ethan obviously tried very hard to hide. A reason Ethan had never wanted anyone else to know.

But Benji knew now.

The impact of that realization made Benji's trembling fingers come to a shaky rest on the keyboard, just as a sudden beep from the computer startled him into jerking them up again. He couldn't immediately see what had caused the beep. But something told him that it couldn't be good. Instantly he became aware of the fact that the longer he kept this file open, the more likely it became that somebody might notice it was being accessed.

Still in shock, but now moving as fast as his trembling fingers allowed, he instantly closed the file and hastily erased every sign of him ever having opened it in the first place.

God, if anyone ever found out… if _Ethan_ ever found out….

And there was another fear on Benji's mind. One that directly related to the name in the original case file of the FBI, the one about the dead shooter.

What if Ethan ever followed in that other man's footsteps? He knew that Ethan was one of the best at what he did. In fact, Ethan was one of the deadliest people Benji knew. If that training was ever put to use on the wrong side of the law, if Ethan ever turned dark side on them, he'd be near unstoppable.

'Don't even go there…' Benji told himself, shivering at the mere idea of where that line of thought might lead.

Another beep from his computer, this time one he had expected and actually waited for, told him that he was now completely logged out of the FBI data base. The ensuing silence in the room made him sit back in his chair, and look at the now harmless desktop showing him nothing but his regular IMF logo.

That's when the worries began stirring within Benji. And panic began to turn into anger at himself. What the hell had he been thinking, digging into that file? Why hadn't he simply logged out when he came upon the blue flag, never even opening the damn thing? Now it was too late…

For a long moment, Benji tried very hard to concentrate. To think.

He wondered if anybody else knew about that old version of Ethan's file. Probably not.

He also wondered if he should tell someone. Maybe. Probably.

But he knew he couldn't.

With a desperate sigh, Benji realized he was grasping at straws.

'I better forget I ever saw this file.'

Hell, as long as he didn't tell anyone what he knew, no one would ever _know_ that he actually knew, right?

That was his line of thought, anyway.

And Benji decided, until he found a better one, he would stick with it.

No one would ever hear about this from him. He wouldn't tell the IMF. Nor the FBI. Nor Jane or Brandt. And certainly not Ethan. Most definitely not Ethan.

So, quickly shutting his laptop down, he took it off the living room desk and carried it upstairs, where he put it into his room, actually locking the door on his way out again, before he went back downstairs into the kitchen.

It took him all of one minute to realize that his mind wasn't really on the potato salad anymore. The resulting taste of the salad was evidence enough, he concluded with a frown as he sampled it on the way to the living room. It was edible, but that was about it.

His team showed up less than five minutes after he had put the forks and knifes on the table.

Jane brought a smile and some wonderfully spicy BBQ sauces.

Brandt brought the ribs and some steaks, ready for the grill.

Ethan brought the beer and some other drinks that they knew Jane preferred over beer.

Benji was happy to see all of them. Really.

'Oh God, who am I trying to kid here?' Benji thought in despair, as he watched his team walk past him into the living room.

For a while, Benji managed to play it cool. He kept telling himself that nothing had changed, nobody knew that he knew, and he hadn't betrayed Ethan in any way by telling anyone else about this. And as long as he didn't spill his beans - or worse, the potato salad - everything was fine.

Ethan would never know that anyone else on this planet knew his secret.

Benji was almost giddy with relief as he clamped down onto that idea.

His illusion of peace lasted for all of half an hour.

Benji had managed to keep himself busy putting some more plates onto the table, plates and flowers, and everything else he could find that made him look like he was NOT waiting for an invisible axe to hit him. He knew Ethan was already busy outside in the garden, where the grill was located, taking of care of the ribs that were slowly roasting over the coals. Brandt and Jane were momentarily busy as well, trying to figure out which sauces would go best with the steaks.

That was the moment, when Benji happened to glance past them in Ethan's direction.

Just as Benji looked, Ethan also happened to look up from the grill. And to Benji's surprise, their eyes suddenly met - as if Ethan had known that Benji was watching him just then.

Ethan's glance was subtle. It was unnoticed by Brandt and Jane. It was aimed directly at Benji.

And it made Benji freeze with a sudden understanding.

Ethan knew.

_Somehow_. Ethan _knew_.

Benji's thought were racing now. How could Ethan know?

That's when it hit Benji.

'Oh god… that beep before I managed to close the file…it must have been some kind of automatic trigger…something that sent a signal to Ethan so he'd know if anyone ever accessed that file again…'

But what now?

Was Ethan going to confront him? How would Ethan react? Had Ethan even ever thought about what he would do to anybody who found out his secret?

'God, please…I wish I had never seen this file…' Benji sent a prayer to the heavens.

As an answer to his prayers, Benji got a rather earthbound reply.

The look that Ethan was giving him suddenly changed from 'intense stare' to something a little less subtle – Benji could now see a clear warning in Ethan's eyes.

And Benji accepted that warning.

More than that.

He understood it.

And he was willing to take that secret into his grave with him, if that was what Ethan was asking.

Facing Ethan's searching look head-on now, knowing that this was the only way to solve the matter, Benji slowly nodded. Once. With that one nod, Benji promised Ethan that he would never tell a soul what he had seen in that file.

It was for the best. For everyone.

Because no one must ever know that Ethan once had a half-brother called Vincent.

THE END


End file.
